FILE – This March 8, 2010, file photo shows Minnesota Vikings defensive tackles Pat Williams, left, and Kevin Williams leaving a Hennepin County courtroom for a lunch break during their trial against the NFL concerning their dispute over drug policies, in Minneapolis, Minn. A Minnesota judge handed the NFL victory Thursday, May 6, 2010, in a closely watched lawsuit by two Minnesota Vikings challenging their four-game suspensions for violating the league anti-doping policy.

After spending about $1 million fighting the NFL in court the past two years to avoid a four-game suspension, Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle Pat Williams is ready to accept the league’s punishment and miss the start of the 2011 season.

The imminent free agent said he does not expect to re-sign with the Vikings or challenge a Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling Tuesday denying him and teammate Kevin Williams an injunction that would have prevented the NFL from suspending them for failing 2008 drug tests.

“I just want it to be over,” Pat Williams said in a telephone interview. “If I lose, I lose. I’m not mad at anybody. Right now, I want it to be over because it’s cost me so much money, close to $1 million (in legal fees). It ain’t cheap.”

The appeals court ruled that the NFL did not violate Minnesota’s Drug and Alcohol Testing in the Workplace Act when it disciplined the Williamses in December 2008, clearing the way for the league to suspend the former Pro Bowl tackles for four games under terms of the collective bargaining agreement.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the court vindicated the league’s Policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances, which it negotiated with the players union.

But Aiello declined to say whether the NFL would suspend the players next season, along with New Orleans defensive end Will Smith, whose similar punishment league Commissioner Roger Goodell deferred until the Williamses’ case was resolved.

“We are in the process of reviewing the decision and determining our next steps,” Aiello said.

The Williamses had tested positive for bumetanide, a prescription drug found in StarCaps, the tainted diuretic they used to lose weight before 2008 training camp. They sued the NFL, claiming the league violated the state labor law. They played under court protection while the lawsuit was pending.

Attorney Peter Ginsberg, who represents the Williamses, said he was unsure whether they would appeal Tuesday’s decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Hennepin County District Judge Gary Larson presided over a weeklong trial in March 2010 and ruled the league did not notify the Williamses that they had failed tests within three days, as required by state law.

The judge also scolded the league for playing “gotcha” by not disclosing that its scientists had learned StarCaps were tainted with bumetanide three years before the Williamses were tested.

At least eight other players tested positive for bumetanide during 2005-08 but were exonerated by the NFL after they linked their failed tests to tainted bottles of StarCaps.

That leniency contradicted the collective bargaining agreement’s strict liability standard that renders players responsible for what is in their bodies. In the summer of 2008, the league resumed suspending players who tested positive for bumetanide, including the Williamses.

“Everybody knows the truth about what happened to us,” Pat Williams said.

At issue before the Court of Appeals was the injunction Larson denied the Williamses after their trial.

Larson concluded that the NFL violated Minnesota law by failing to notify the Williamses within three days that they had failed tests. However, Larson determined the Williamses were not harmed by the delay or the league’s decision not to disclose what it knew about StarCaps. He declined to award the Williamses damages or block the league from suspending them.

Appellate Judge Francis Connolly went further, writing in an 11-page opinion that the NFL did not violate state law because the law does not govern bumetanide.

“The result gets the NFL off on a technicality,” said professor Stephen Ross, director of Penn State’s Institute for Sports Law, Policy and Research.

Shortly after the Williamses sued the NFL in December 2008, the Food and Drug Administration recalled the over-the-counter diuretic because it was laced with bumetanide, a potent prescription drug the NFL and players association classify as a masking agent for steroids. The Williamses have not been accused of taking steroids.

The NFL said its drug-testing policy provides broader protections for Vikings players than for other workers in the state. The league argued its policy supersedes state law and gives the NFL the authority to discipline its players.

Still, the Court of Appeals ruled the NFL must comply with the state law’s strict standards for steroids testing of Minnesota players.

“The league’s lawyers will simply have to make sure that the annoying Minnesota state law is complied with before suspending any Vikings in the future,” Ross said.

“On the other hand, if (state law) substantively changes the NFL’s drug program so that the NFL either has to conform to (the law) everywhere or treat Vikings players in a significantly different way, (the state law) should have to give way.”

Meanwhile, Pat Williams is retreating.

Accepting the league’s four-game suspension in December 2008 would have cost him $941,176 in salary. Instead, Williams said, he has spent about that much in legal fees trying to avoid the NFL’s wrath.

“The only person getting anything out of keeping on fighting is the lawyers,” he said.

Brian Murphy has been on the Pioneer Press sports staff since 2000, migrating from the Detroit Free Press, where he covered police, courts and sports for four years. Murphy was the Minnesota Wild/NHL beat writer from 2002 to 2008 and has covered the Vikings as a reporter and columnist since 2009. Murphy is a Detroit native and Wayne State University graduate.

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